As well as providing an insight into the workings of the IRB and their plans for the Rising, this letter from Patrick Pearse to Eamon de Valera can be seen as a memento of a significant moment in de Valera’s life.

To round out this year’s ‘From the Archives’ series, December’s instalment finds Col. Maurice Moore of the pro-Redmond National Volunteers taking a moment after his Christmas dinner to press on with his plans to arm and equip the National Volunteers.

This month’s ‘From the Archives’ document is an extract from the minute book of the (Irish) Belgian Refugees Committee, established in October 1914 as part of the wider British response to the flow of civilian refugees flooding out of Belgium in the weeks after the country became the epicentre of the twentieth century’s first global conflict.